Friday, 9 June 2017

Temporary use of space: Urban processes between flexibility, opportunity and precarity

From popup shops and restaurants to container buildings and
gardens, there has been a growing trend in the temporary use of urban space.
This trend is celebrated by many observers, who see it as novel, progressive
and exciting, making the underused space available for activities that would
otherwise be unable to flourish, while adding colour, vitality and spontaneity
to the urban environment. Such flexibilities in the use of space may open a
door to new possibilities, but I wanted to go beyond the apparent aesthetic
excitement and understand the trend more fully, to see where it fits within the
broader context of urban processes and how it can be critically analysed.

Empty spaces are the outcome of fluctuations and crises in
capitalism, which have reached unprecedented dimensions through globalization,
and the associated technological and economic changes, as reflected in large
numbers of empty shops, offices, and housing units in different parts of the
world. The temporary use of space has been one of the key responses to this
crisis of overproduction, introducing flexibilities in the control and use of
land and property, which go past the traditional ways of rent adjustment. As I
once discussed with Kira Cochrane of the Guardian newspaper[1],
temporary spaces can be understood in contrasting ways: on the one hand making
productive use of empty spaces for a variety of locally useful activities, and
on the other hand a disguise for consumerism. Their flexibility offers new
opportunities to creative entrepreneurs as well as civil society groups and
local activities, but also normalizes the sense of precarity for these users,
while it is being transmuted into a cultural instrument of branding and
marketing, which is used profitably by large companies.

Elsewhere, I have investigated temporary parks and gardens
that turn the city into an ephemeral event[2].
My focus in this article is on the temporary use of private space. I have used
the example of Chesterfield House in Wembley, London, which provided the
opportunity for temporary use of space offered at low cost to creative
entrepreneurs, facilitated by the authorities and welcomed by the local media
and community groups. By locating the temporary use within the longer period of
property development, however, we gain a fuller picture of the initiative. In a
project of converting an empty office space to high density housing, the other
face of the temporary use of space becomes visible: an interim measure for
reducing the costs and improving the local acceptability of the impending
development. It is through this wider, mobile lens that we can see the different
sides of temporary urbanism.

The ancient Greeks called a moment that captures many
possibilities Kairos, a particular concept of time. I was interested in understanding
whether the temporary use of space reflects a broader change in the concepts
and character of time in urban society today. This is a subject I explored in a
book, Cities in Time [3](Published
by Bloomsbury in 2017), in which I have studied temporary urbanism in the context
of the philosophy of time, at the intersection of instrumental, existential and
experimental concepts of time.

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Urban Studies is the leading interdisciplinary journal for critical urban research and issues. Since it was first published in 1964 to provide an international forum for research into the fields of urban and regional studies, the journal has expanded to encompass the increasing range of disciplines and approaches that have been brought to bear on urban and regional issues